Education

Sound Masking in Education

Protecting your students’ privacy isn’t just an add-on – it’s the law. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) mandates that post-secondary institutions take all reasonable efforts to safeguard student information including how the information is collected, stored, used, and released. Many institutions have established effective security measures to protect the data stored on their servers, but overlook the need to safeguard client information during its collection and use. Sound Masking solutions help protect speech privacy by making it more difficult to overhear people speaking.

In addition to providing a more secure and private environment for your students, sound masking can also help reduce distractions. Adding sound masking in education settings, such as to your libraries, student centers, classrooms, and other study spaces will ensure minimal disruptions to students while they are studying or taking tests.

“Our library was so acoustically lively, the students were shushing the librarians! Now, our space is as appealing functionally as it is visually.”– David Pilachowski Director of Libraries Williams College

Industry Challenges

Each day, hundreds of students share sensitive information relating to finances, grades, housing, and personal health.

There is a high risk of personal information being overheard in adjoining corridors, waiting rooms, and communal spaces.

Many older facilities include high open ceilings and large reflective surfaces like glass windows and brick walls, creating more noise distractions through reverberation.

Address the need for acoustic treatment outlined in upcoming LEED Commercial Interiors Certification. Also mitigates the acoustic issues created by windows to meet the LEED requirement for daylighting and views.

Challenges

To minimize construction costs, demountable walls are being installed which only extend up to the ceiling, not to the deck, allowing spillover of sound through the plenum into adjacent work areas.

Workers expect a level of speech privacy in collaborative spaces, such as conference rooms, that is rarely accomplished with the construction techniques being used.

Cambridge Sound Management sound masking systems

Help to ensure FERPA compliance.

Cover sound that “spills” between adjacent work environments.

Mask conversations in adjoining hallways from being distracting to conference room meeting participants.

Mask conversations in conference rooms from being overheard in adjoining offices or hallways.

An Effective and Budget Friendly Solution

The table below shows the effectiveness of common types of acoustical treatments. The office environment in this example features 8’ ceilings and 10’x10’ cubicles. After implementation, direct-field sound masking is the most effective and budget friendly solution for delivering increased privacy while reducing conversational distractions.